Hello & Welcome

welcome to my blog that contains little bits of what goes on in my world. I am mama to Fay and Lily, wife to Ian and a crafter. I love my life even with the bipolar, adhd and the new countries we move to - currently Barcelona, Spain. Click to email me

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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

one of the few part of the tourist strip aka La Rambla that we like in the artist end, closest to the harbour when the artist and craft stalls are and where the Living Statues set up to entertain and scare the unwitting.

The costumes and attention to details are just stunning.

ps Lily is wearing my Klingon tshirt (i had a long sleeve underneath) as the sun was going down and it gets a bit chilly in February in the shade.

firstly that I have a ton of half finished scrapbook projects that hopefully i will find the creative will power to finish. I ended up being so burnt out when I left the scrapbook industry that i just got out of the habit of scrapbooking everyday. I have been trying techquques and doing some rpesents so hoping that i can work my way back into that side of things.

after that, here is a general and basic list of whats been happening... food, my girls, cookies, cosplay, ice hockey, steampunk, parades, interesting finds, street art and a million other things...

Monday, February 24, 2014

I have been scared and neglectful of this blog to be honest. To get started again with regular posts, when I haven't scrapbooked in months and months, made me feel very wary of what value I could share with anyone or even if people cared to know about what I have been doing. So I was not really sure what to do with this blog, where it was going and where I was going creatively.

but several recent conversations with people made me realise this is my space and I am not "just" a scrapbooker and that some people would love to see what is going on regardless. so I am back to try again, to see if i can pick this up and figure it all out again but I am making no promises and I have no expectations as that only leads to a mental health breakdown.

for those wanting more regular connection, I am on facebook and these are where else you can find me... honestly the same stuff is on most of them so take your pick...

Thursday, August 15, 2013

(re-uploaded as somehow the mobile version of typepad is a pile of poo)

It is the hottest part of the summer here right now in barcelona which means hot sweaty days followed by hot sweaty nights ... 28c (84f) at midnight!! so not a lot is getting done unless it has the word ice-cream or water in it...

but more importantly Ian is currently on 2 weeks holidays so we are playing tourist and checking out barcelona so this means I am not creating much nor on the main computer much.

Hope everyone is having an awesome summer

I will be back at the end of August to continue 5W's and the Saturday Sketches...and for Day-to-day stuff, you can catch me on Facebook.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Today has been a year since the last time I have contact with this awesome person - we were going to be within a few miles of each other for once but our schedules just didn't make it happen. We talked by email and promised to meet up properly once the kids were back in school.

I never got that chance as Kimmy died from sudden late stage Cancer in September. It is hard to think that I knew her for so long - nearly 8 years and now I wont get to hear her laughter or read her pointed comments or see her new projects be it layouts or knitting. We've had some blazing rows and some amazing laughs but mostly we shared common interests and life experiences.

It might have been that hers was the 3rd death in our extended group within a year or the fact it was so sudden nut hHer death hit me harder than I expected as we weren't super close as personal friends but I counted her in my close friends and she was always there when i need advice or a swift kick.

Her funeral was serene and poignant. We got a good giggle out of the fact she was cremated in a woolen coffin - I think she would have found that awesome.

It made me think of the what-ifs and also of the whys, the wasted energies and wasted time in trying to keep reaching out to people and family who are determined to live a negative or destructive life. Life is too precious to waste it like that.

Her legacy will be there in the people she inspired and I will always be grateful to have known Kim.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

We went to the Barcelona zoo yesterday as Ian is on vacation and it's Lily's birthday wish - and all added together meant we bought ourselves a year membership so we can go again and again and again :)

Sunday, August 04, 2013

you may have noticed that all my photo sharing stopped a few weeks ago - that was becuase I managed to drop my blackberry in the bath!! I stuck it in some rice and saved it but the camera died so I've kinda been lost as I don't carry my dslr camera out and about in Barcelona when I have the kids... and i managed to break my 50mm lens for the nikon too so i dislike the larger lens.. so its been a bit weird to not be able to take photos as I go.

so I've been looking at other phones - samsungs - but we dont do contract cell phones and try and buy the phones outright so it meant saving up etc but other things needed the money. I decided on a samsung 3 (or maybe a 4 if they dropped in price by the time we saved up) with a plan to have it by the end of the year.

But then I was gifted a brand new Samsung S3 through Ian and some friends as an early "nearly-40" birthday pressie... oh wow - the camera is awesome and it has apps - never had a smart phone before so its been a massive learning curve but its been fun!

So unexpected but it will be cherished...haven't had a new phone in over 10 years - normally I get Ian's old phone every few years so it's a kind of giggly experience.

Today’s
technique is making your own paper templates. Scrapbook paper comes in square
sheets 12”x12” and we usually cut them down into smaller rectangular shapes but
that can quickly become boring both visually and creatively.

Some paper company
sell shaped sheets to alleviate this but not everyone does and often they cost
extra and never in the perfect colour or pattern you wanted. To get around that
we will make some templates that we will use throughout the course so it is
worth having them to hand.

so using the template instructions, I used the Sketch in the PDF to make the following two layouts:

I rotated the sketch sideways to allow me to use a landscape photo

I wish you creative
joy in this part of scrapbooking as this is where you make choices about all the pretty parts of scrapbooking.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

I have been working on mine and Ian's family tree for over a year now - its been an amazing and frustrating process but enjoyable none the less.

I've worked with My Heritage and Ancestry - my heritage is good for adding photos and looking pretty but Ancestry win simply for shear amount of search-able information.

That picture is of a 8ft by 4 ft chart of direct ancestors for Ian's folks - all the way back to 1740 and some beyond...

I have had to restrict my looking to just major ancestors as otherwise it would be huge with all the children of people but even with that I have nearly a 1000 people between the two families. It's been a steep learning curve and a lot of family tree madness to sort out - 6 generations of Bob Sheader with brothers called Walter doesn't help matters, neither does census people have spelling issues...

I would recommend it to everyone :)

and if you are lucky, there will be other relatives on there who have photographs and information they are willing to share - like this awesome wedding photograph of Ian's Great Grandparents in 1913.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Feeling a lot more alive lately and have been creating but the hot weather in Barcelona (34c+ daytime and 20c+ nightime) isn't helping with having enough energy. So will be trying to catch up with posting projects and photographs but if you have me on facebook, you might have seen them already.